Dwarf Treasure Hunters! - Starting Warband help

New to Mordheim but I've gone for Dwarf Treasure Hunter's as I've a long history with playing with stunties both in Warhammer Fantasy Battle & Roleplay as who can't like a race that has homicidal lunatics with mohicans.

Anyway with all that out of the way here's what I've come up with so far. As soon as I nail this down I can start the fun stuff of getting mini's a painting. I was going to use some of my dwarves from my army but can't bring myself to repaint them and it's also a good excuse to buy some new mini's and also throw my hand to some conversions.

Noble: Dwarf Axe
Engineer: Crossbow, Hammer
Slayer 1:Dwarf Axe, Axe
Slayer 2:Dwarf Axe, Axe

Thunderer 1:Crossbow, Hammer
Thunderer 2:Crossbow, Hammer
Clansman: Hammer

Total 497 (3 gold left. That will get a few Bugman's for the boys if they behave themselves)

Drengi wrote:

who can't like a race that has homicidal lunatics with mohicans.

Couldn't have said it better

Drengi wrote:

Noble: Dwarf Axe
Engineer: Crossbow, Hammer
Slayer 1:Dwarf Axe, Axe
Slayer 2:Dwarf Axe, Axe

Thunderer 1:Crossbow, Hammer
Thunderer 2:Crossbow, Hammer
Clansman: Hammer

Alright, let's take it from the top with some tipz!

Noble: I'd definitely go with more protection. You can get Gromril Armour at a slick price of 75gc, as opposed to the 150gc you pay outside their homeland. If you lose the Noble, then he's gone for good, and though he ain't much of a Hero, his loss will bring your Hero number down by 25% to half of maximum Heroes; that ain't good! So give him that Gromril, which of course needs a Shield as well and a Helmet (Dwarves are the best Helmet-wearers, as all injury rolls sit on a 50% chance to stun them. Also, when they make a Helmet save, they're much harder to take out than a Human, with only 3 Toughness).

Engineer: I know the idea of shooting down enemies is a huge part of the Dwarf tactic, however, unless you're playing against a lot of shooty warbands, that hit on 5+ every other turn won't do you much good. I'd definitely recommend at least Quick Shot before bothering with a Crossbow, and before you get Nimble, I'd say he should be on BS4. Then you'll actually feel that your Crossbow does some good.

Dwarf Troll Slayers: Double Dwarf Axes. All I can say. It's their only save for now, and they're going to need it! (Because they tend to die a lot in the beginning, which is why I usually only have 1 in the first game, that I need to babysit)

Thunderers: Once again with the Crossbows. You can get much better value for that money as of now. Helmets are only 10gc compared to 25gc for a Crossbow, and will increase both their damage output + their survivability. But make sure that your Heroes get Helmets first!

Clansman: Imo. you should only have Clansmen to begin with (perhaps 1 Thunderer if you want, but only so you can get a group with BS4, so you can add more to it). Clansmen make the best Heroes, both melee and shooty, and Heroes are what you need in the beginning.

Also the number: 4-6 is better for a starting warband, as it will net you a larger income. If you want 7 to begin with, you might as well go with 8 or 9 (depending on how soon you wish to be able to rout).

Drengi wrote:

Total 497 (3 gold left. That will get a few Bugman's for the boys if they behave themselves)

Though when do Dwarves ever really behave!

Hope I could help a bit!

One thing I'd like to mention to new Mordheim players, especially ones coming in from Warhammer or similar, is don't sweat the starting list. You'll spend a lot of time thinking about what your plan is or what role each hero will have, but anything could happen. Imagine that your noble dies and you engineer gets an extra attack. You'd end up going in a completely different direction from what you'd expect. So don't worry about list-making as you would for Warhammer. Keep in mind, having a strategy from the get go is always a good idea, but be ready for it to be radically altered for good or ill. Such is Mordheim.

Some excellent advice Aipha I'll have a little tinker with the gang when I get a chance. I like the idea of the Gromril for the noble as the beginnings of my back story is the Noble & Engineer are sons of a runes smith and are there to retrieve some wyrdstone for him. So a suit of Gromril armor would make sense.

Also thank you Saluksic, that will help me relax, great food for thought. I won't go too mad with the tinkering and see what happens once I start playing.

Check out my post in another similar thread. I like your list in general its cheap. Dispense with the thunderers and take 2 beardlings each for their price.

You protect those troll slayers from being charged with the fleshy bodies of the beardlings. Then the Heroes clean up.

Man I'm the champion of procrastination and distraction. I'm a true dwarf put something shiny and new in my way and that's it I've forgotten what I was doing and on to something else. I've also been playing the spiffy PC mordheim game which although is a bit different to the table-top game it does still give ideas to tactics and warband builds.

Anyway I've finally gotten back around to tackling mordheim. I've based all the card buildings and scenery. And now on to painting my warband. So far I've finished the Slayer (had to start with him). I think I will stick to just one and see how it goes. Next will be the noble and I will go with Aipha and tone down the shooty and also start with smaller band and kit them out better.

I'm also painting up a loner Skaven warband from the spures you get in the box. I said I wouldn't paint warbands for anyone else. Already done that when I use to play Warhammer and I still haven't a full army of my own painted. But needs must I guess.

I think dwarves shine in close combat, so I prefer a warband with more members and pistols to support CloseCombat warriors from mid and short range. In my opinion the typical Warhammer dwarf tactic "dig a hole and shoot" doesn't work with Mordheim if you have proper scenery, and the warband is designed for more than that.

Anyways, if you want to have crossbows, heroes are best suited to use them. I'd give one to the engineer and another one to the noble, with his BS 4 is your best marksman out of the box, and regular dwarves don't need his leadership at all, so you can leave him at long range. I wouldn't give crossbows to the thunderers until they get promoted to heroes, and use them as CC units while they are henchmen. I think 68 gc is way too much for a marksman with BS 3 that dies 33% times he gets OoA.

So, I'd give one of the crossbows to the noble, discard his dwarf axe, hire another thunderer instead of the clansman (they have the same stats and work as fine as CC, but you want more chances to get a thunderer hero), and hire a tilean marksmen instead of the other crossbow... you will have some extra cash to pay his fee next game or get more equipment. If you want to have an extra guy, discard one of the thunderers and get two beardlings for a warband size of 9. You will have a bigger band and more long range potential than your list has.

Good luck with your sturdies, and make the dice rock and roll!

+1 to the idea of more crossbows from Bixto, but I disagree about the more Thunderers. He is right in that you *do* want your TLGT heroes to be snipers, but Clansmen make better snipers (mid-long term) than Thunderers do. Aipha explains it very well in his Dwarf guide so I am going to steal his words:

Aipha wrote:

Clansmen over Thunderers: I’d always start with minimum one Clansman, as they make the best Heroes, both melee and ranged. A Clansman with Strength/Special (which I would recommend) or Shooting/Special (also my recommendation) is stronger than a Thunderer with the same skill sets if you look at it in a broader perspective. A Clansman have access to both Double-handed Weapons & Dwarf Axes, while a Thunderer would need the Combat table along with the Weapons Training skill to get access to those, meaning that his potential is less. Same principle applies to a shooty Clansman compared to a shooty Thunderer. If you have a Thunderer Hero, he has access to Crossbows and Handguns. A Clansman needs a skill to pick shooty weapons (except Pistols), but this means that he can access a variety of ranged weapons (I’d usually pick a Crossbow along with a Hunting Rifle). On top of that, the Clansman can still access Dwarf Axes (which can be buffed with his Special table giving him access to Master of Blades) or Double-handed Weapons, which can make him a hard-hitting shooty Hero (Strength/Shooting is also a possibility for Dwarves, I just think the Special table is one of the best).

The rest of the guide can be found here: The full guide in all its glory.

Oh true, you're right, I've been told about it and it really makes sense for long campaigns. Clansmen have access to more equipment, specially dwarf axes, and that's allways a plus when talking about heroes, I was just thinking in short campaigns because it's the way I play. But if your campaigns are longer than 8-10 games, getting clansmen instead thunderers seems the way to go.

Thanks for linking that guide! Great read!

One comment: There is no crossbow for the noble at the beginning, only pistols as range combat option.

I personally try to start with 8-9 members, with beardllings and no dwarven axe ,but 2 crossbowmen ( thunderer with crossbows). With 6 or 7 dwarves it is very difficult to win the early games.

So true... it was a long time ago the last time I used Dwarfs as long ranged that I didn't even remembered the Noble don't have access to crossbows out of the box.

Totally agree on having 8-9 guys instead 6-7, specially if you spread forces because long ranged, and dwarf axes aren't that great until you earn Master of blades skill, I'd rather prefer a pistol for the noble or a halfing for that cost. Remember to use hired swords for extra punch even with your starting band. Dwarf Treasure Hunters is one of the best suited bands to use hired swords thanks to their low numbers and +1 to wyrdstone, they will have stable gold income even when you loose or have a really bad exploration roll.